FEEL THE EXCITEMENT – AT 8:43 A.M. ET:  The first Democratic debate is tonight, from the high-rolling city of Las Vegas.  Can you sense the national excitement?  The anticipation?  The wonder?  No, neither can I.

CNN, which is hosting the debate, has been promoting it to eternity.  I've never seen such self-serving promotion.  Hour after hour of "direct from Vegas" reports.  They're actually running a countdown clock on the screen indicating how many hours, minutes and seconds we have to go before the event.  Why, there's Hillary Clinton's makeup kit arriving.  Wait, I see Bernie Sanders's travel iron.  Let's hear what the iron has to say.   Lincoln and Douglas never had it so good.

There actually seems no great excitement at all.  Sure, we want to know how Hillary does, and we'll want to see just how softball the CNN softball questions will be.  There is some curiosity about how Sanders will take on Hillary.  The man is, after all, a committed socialist.  She may be a socialist, too, but uncommitted. 

There is substantial fear at CNN that the TV ratings for the debate will be underwhelming. 

And then there's a guy called Joe.  The man who didn't come to dinner.  Joe Biden, still decidin', will not be there.  And the question now is whether he's waiting too long to decide, whether his hour has passed.  One reporter noted that only six Dem debates are planned, and that the next five will be on weekends, when audiences will inevitably be smaller.  If Joe gets in, who will he be speaking to during those next five debates? 

The punditry tells us that Hillary had a good week last week.  A good week for Hillary is a week when she isn't charged with anything new.  She still has hanging over her multiple investigations that will drift into the election year.  She may even have to lawyer up. 

Well, I guess I'll have to watch.  It's a sacrifice I will make for our readers.  Frankly, I'd rather be seeing YouTube films of old Brooklyn Dodger baseball games, or reruns of Jack Webb in "Dragnet."   But there are times in life when we must inflict pain on ourselves.  I'll get out the Advil.

October 13,  2015